If You Love Something Set it Free
by I-survived-life
Summary: If Lily loved James then she would have to let him go.


Lily couldn't do this to James, she just couldn't do it. The minute that she had been born, a target had been put on her even though she had been unaware of it at the time. When she had gone to Hogwarts, she had been unaware of the fact that there would be someone out there who hated her so much that he would try to eradicate people who came from families like hers.

But she hadn't remained naive for very long.

Lily had gone to Hogwarts for seven years and in those seven years, she had made and lost friends, and she has learnt various forms of magic. And during those seven years Lily had come into contact with someone that absolutely infuriated her at times and made her breathless with laughter at others.

_James Potter._

He made her laugh like no one else could; he knew how to get under her skin and all of the right buttons to poke to get a reaction out of her. James could be lazy, childish, and the amount of whining that he did whenever he lost a Quidditch match got to the point where Lily genuinely considered stunning him to get him to shut up.

James loved his friends just as much as he loved Lily and he didn't have to think twice about putting himself in harm's way to help the people he loved —he could be stupid like that. James put up with her yelling even when Lily was being unfair because he knew that Lily wasn't mad at him, and James knew that whenever Lily told him to leave her alone that it wasn't what she wanted.

Lily loved each and every single thing about James. James had been there from the time that Lily had gotten sorted to the letter that Petunia had written which made her burst into tears. He had been there for so much that the idea of James not being present in Lily's life was absurd.

James made Lily stupidly happy with his teasing, and his compliments, and sneaking Lily food. It had never occurred to Lily to leave James.

Until she got the letter.

_You are a walking target Lily Evans and if you loved James Potter as much you claimed that you did then you'd let him go so that he could have a chance with someone who wasn't a dead person walking._

The note was crumpled up in her hand, it had been sent to her anonymously, and Lily had carried it everywhere that she went since she had gotten it. She took it out when no one was looking and read it over, and over, and over again. Lily had read it so many times by that she could recite the letter off by heart. The words ate away at Lily's thoughts and kept her up at night.

Because whoever had sent the letter was right.

If Lily loved James in the way that she claimed that she did then wouldn't the best thing be to give him up? Shouldn't he have a life with someone that wasn't her? She wanted James to be able to build a life with someone that actually had a chance of making it through Voldemort's terror alive.

Lily had countless chances to break up with James and each time she let it get away from her. She wanted to let him go but she couldn't, the words never made it out of her mouth so Lily came up with a new tactic: get James to dump her.

Lily avoided her boyfriend at all costs, they barely spent any time together and whenever they did, Lily found the most ridiculous thing to get mad at James about and ended up yelling. She ignored him, insulted him, and left the room whenever he showed up.

No one really understood what was going on, James had been asked if he and Lily had gotten into a fight but he had simply scratched his head in confusion and said no. He was sure that he would have remembered getting into an argument with Lily.

It seemed like Lily was always angry, displeased, and generally an unpleasant person to be around. She hated acting the way she did because Lily knew how ridiculous she looked, she knew what everyone must've thought of her. She couldn't understand why James never told her that enough was enough.

All he did when she lost her temper with him was give her a confused, helpless look as she stormed off. It took all of Lily's self-control to not go running back and apologize. But just when she had finally made up her mind to do what she hated, James finally snapped.

He had gotten tired of Lily's irrational behaviour, he hadn't done anything to her, and she was being unfair. Their fights were no longer one-sided, both James and Lily were screaming at each other from across rooms, for what, they sometimes didn't know.

They fought and fought until it seemed that that was all that they could do. Lily could feel James losing patience with her, and with that knowledge in mind, she became as cruel as she possibly could. The insults increased about his friends, James' intelligence, his Quidditch skill, his family, anything that Lily knew was a bit of a sore spot for James. She was just waiting for the day that James would finally snap and end it between them.

"What do you want from me Lily?" James demanded of her one night. They had run into each other by accident in the Astronomy tower —or perhaps it wasn't entirely by accident, they both went there when they wanted to be alone— after classes and within a few minutes the two of them were having a row. James' mouth was set in a thin line while he glared daggers at Lily from the other end of the room. Lily's hands were clenched into fists at her side as she ground her teeth and shook with the anger that she was containing.

"We were fine Lily, we were happy together and then one day someone flipped a switch or something and all of a sudden you were angry all the time. Something was always bothering you, you were always unhappy with everything, you were unhappy with me," James said, pointing to himself. He wanted to shout to the world because it didn't feel like he was getting anywhere, they screamed and screamed but it was like talking to a brick wall.

Lily was silent across the room. She couldn't be honest with him because if she was, he would never let her go like she wanted him to. It was better to make James hate her than have to break his heart.

And Lily was finally getting what she wanted, but it didn't make her happy. All she wanted to do was just burst into tears and apologize for the way that she had been behaving.

"You were always yelling at me Lily and I just put up with it because I thought something was wrong and you didn't want to tell me about it. But then it didn't stop everyday you were yelling at me and I kept asking myself what I'd done wrong. I blamed myself for all of your unhappiness Lily," James yelled at her. His arms stopped waving through the air and hung limply by his side, like he didn't know what to do about them.

"All I want to do is make you happy Lily but nothing makes you happy and I'm at my wits end here. It feels like you've gotten tired of me Lily, it's like you've realized that I'm not worth your time and you just want to be finished with me," James said softly. He let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his messy hair as he paced from side to side.

"How can I be with someone whose only motivation for becoming a better person was me?" Lily finally spat out. She was grasping at straws, she wasn't tired of him, she wanted to grab James by the shoulders and shake him while she told him that he was worth her time.

And just as quickly as the anger had died down, it flared up again.

"I did not become a better person just for you Lily," James said, taking four big strides across the room and jabbing his index finger in the middle of her chest.

"Then why would the famous James Potter just up and quit making a fool of people?" Lily hissed at him.

"In case you haven't noticed Lily, there's a war coming and I don't have time to waste being a jerk to people," James said through gritted teeth. "You were right about some of my pranks, they humiliated people and that wasn't funny. My younger self was a jerk Lily and if I could change that, I would because I mistreated a lot of people. It is time to start growing up. So no, I didn't change only for you Lily."

The two were silent for a moment; James was waiting for Lily to say something but Lily had nothing to say. She was just waiting for him to deliver the final blow before leaving her alone in the tower.

"I want to help you get through whatever is causing this Lily but you need to let me help you, otherwise I can't deal with this anymore. I love you Lily but there's a certain point where it has to stop," James said quietly. He expected her to speak up and spill everything to him because surely he meant as much to Lily as she meant to him. Surely Lily would rather be with him than keep her secrets bottled up.

But Lily didn't say anything. She simply stared at the floor with her lips pressed tightly together. James' heart broke more and more the longer that Lily stayed silent, he refused to believe that he meant so little to her that she would rather keep her mouth shut than let him help her. She avoided eye contact with James in the hopes that he wouldn't see the tears that were gathering at the corners of her eyes and making them burn.

"You have nothing else to say?" he asked her tonelessly.

"No."

"Fine, have it your way," James said and turned away from her. It felt like someone was ripping out Lily's heart and stomping all over it. She had gotten what she wanted and now she had to deal with the consequences, but at least James would be able to move on from her and be with someone who would last through the war that was coming.

"I didn't realize how little I meant to you," James said quietly and that was when Lily snapped. All of those times that he had spent with her, kissed her and held her, and it had meant nothing to Lily. She had no trouble with letting him go; he knew it had been too good to be true.

"That is not why I did this," she said in a strong voice. James stopped in the doorway and turned around to look at her.

"What?"

"That is not why I was so horrible, don't you ever say or even think that you mean nothing to me," she said angrily. She had spent weeks with this man and he honestly thought that he meant nothing to Lily.

"You listen here James Potter, you mean the world to me, do you understand me?" Lily snapped at him. She marched over to James and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

"The Lily I know wouldn't treat people the way that you have for the past couple of weeks, she wouldn't lose her temper over every single thing, and she wouldn't yell at me for no reason. You tell me what I'm supposed to think," James replied.

"That Lily was selfish."

"No she wasn't—"

"Yes, she was James," Lily interrupted and let go of him. She stepped away from James so that she could have room to breathe. Lily had sworn that she would never tell James why she had been so cruel but she couldn't let him go away thinking that he didn't matter to her.

"The old Lily fell in love with you and dated you, she gave you hope James, and she set you up for destruction."

"What are you talking about?" James asked his voice laced with confusion instead of anger.

"I'm a walking target James!" Lily cried, burying her hands in her red hair. "I'm muggleborn James and everyone who is muggleborn is on Voldemort's hit list. You're right, there is a war coming, but how likely is it that I'm going to make it through it?"

"Lily you're the strongest person I know—" James started.

"And so what if I am?! Voldemort is smarter, stronger, and faster. It's impossible to kill him James, if he can't be killed then what hope is there for me? You've gotten yourself into a relationship with a dead girl James. You've placed all of your trust and your affections with me and when I go—"

"You are not going to—"

"AND WHEN I GO," Lily said, raising her voice in order to drown out James, "you're going to be devastated. You're in love with someone who isn't going to love you back for always."

Lily looked James in the eye and gave a little half-smile at his absolutely stunned expression.

"I want you to be able to grow old with someone else, someone who will be able to have children with you that won't become a target just because of who their mother is. It kills me to think of leaving you but I want what's best for you James, and if I love you, I have to let you go," Lily said, her voice quivering as she tried to keep the tears that had pooled in her eyes from rolling down her face.

"Lily—"

"I don't want you to get hurt James," she whispered and wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hold.

James looked at Lily for a moment and slowly walked over to her. He took her face in his hands and looked down at Lily with a frown on his face.

"For someone so ridiculously smart, you're an absolute idiot Lily Evans," James stated bluntly. Lily's eyebrows just about disappeared into her hairline as her mouth dropped open in shock.

"Excuse—"

"You do not get to make decisions for me Lily, you've just basically planned out the rest of my life without consulting me first," he went on.

"James I just want to do what's right, I don't want you to get hurt when I'm gone," Lily pleaded desperately.

"You are not going to die, for as long as you're fighting Lily, I'm going to fight with you. We are going to make sure that you stay alive, okay?" James asked but didn't bother to wait for an answer.

"But—"

"Look, Lily, you don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world . . . but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices."

"I'm not worth it James," Lily replied with a shake of her head as she stared at his chest.

"Maybe not to other people, but you're worth the pain to me Lily," and he wouldn't hear her say anything different on the matter. James moved his hands from Lily's face to her arms.

"Look at me Lily," James said softly, and she lifted her gaze to meet his. "As long as you fight, I fight with you, got it?"

"Got it," Lily said nodding.

"And if you give up fighting, I'm going to shake you back to life and give you a good talking to once I've kicked Voldemort's arse," James added with a grin. Lily couldn't help the smile that spread across her face or the small giggle that escaped her.

"Repeat after me, I, Lily Evans, will not die," James said sternly.

"I, Lily Evans, will not die," Lily repeated obediently.

"Now say it with feeling."

* * *

**Disclaimer time: **the quote "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices." is from the Fault in Our Stars which is written by John Green. The quote "if you love something set it free, if it was meant to be it'll come back to you" is by an anonymous person.

**A/N: **Thank you to that person that pointed out that it was mostly all coding, I don't know what happened but my computer did something hella weird. Anyway, hopefully, it's fixed now!


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